Dream on

What should the future role of the state be? The problem with this very general question is that it seeks a general answer. It assumes an abstract state which has determinate functions, which responds to specific stimuli and which has a range of powers. In other words, the question assumes the possibility of a general theory of the state.

I think this endeavour, which has preoccupied the minds of theorists for several centuries, has exhausted itself. We will never have a theory of the state which will fit both Luxembourg and the United States, as well as China, the Republic of Congo, Paraguay and Lebanon – unless we remain at an extremely high level of generality. We can jot down a list of states' functions (supervising the economy by taxing and spending, maintaining law and order, ensuring security from external threats, regulating markets, providing public services, negotiating with other states, etc) but this kind of exercise does not get us very far, since existing sovereign states have very different powers and are enmeshed into the international system in very different ways.

To add to the complexity of the issue, we also have a number of regional and bilateral accords, some formal (for instance, the European Union) others informal (the so-called special relationship which ties some countries, such as the UK and Israel, to the United States). These accords, though they formally restrict sovereignty and are sometimes internally contested, often enable an expansion of the functions of states and a better performance. Finally we also have a set of relationships, mainly but not exclusively economic – what goes under the generic name of globalisation – which is constantly changing.

Over the last century or so states – all of them – have expanded their functions in all directions. Little has been left untouched. Much of the current political debate, precisely because it centres on what the state should and should not do, accepts the fundamental premise that, potentially, the state, particularly if backed by a visible majority of the population, can do anything it likes. It controls the market by deciding what can be bought and sold, by defining property rights. It controls private life by deciding who we can marry, the speed at which we can drive, how our children should be educated, where we can smoke, where we can travel, what we can read, and so on. The limits of its power are set by the popular will (how much the people can tolerate), the resources at its disposal, the capabilities of its personnel, and by a complex range of external constraints.

From this perspective, discussing the future role of the state in the abstract is a useless exercise. What this or that state should do and what states should do together is, on the contrary, the essence of politics and this is where opinions divide. Contrary to what it is generally assumed, the years since the 1980s have not seen a retrenchment of the state – the so-called Reagan-Thatcher neo-liberal revolution. At no stage did the official exponents of the minimalist state (I am talking about the political parties which expressed such a position, not the ideologues who barked at the sidelines) deny the centrality of the national state in the economy. They simply thought that a low level of regulation was preferable to a high one. The present situation suggests that they lost the argument.

The real debate should move onto an entirely different level, namely onto the construction of an international system of regulation. This will not happen, precisely because states vary so much and any international system would need to be constructed around the interest of the hegemonic state. In the absence of a true hegemon (and current assumptions are that the US will not be able to reconstruct the hegemony it had during the 30 years after Bretton Woods) there will be no agreement. The current crisis has not even generated a common EU policy. States will continue to perform the same roles as before, will patch up their economies in a more or less concerted way. We will be stuck with a partially globalised economy and an extension of national regulations, and anarchy will continue to prevail.

• If laissez-faire politics is dead, what's the role of the state? Ten British and German thinkers tell us in a Cif series, The state, your business.